Poor Little Rich Kids
by Omnicat
Summary: Five drabbles, 4x100 and 1x150 words. Relena, Quatre, and the lives they lead.


**Title:** Poor Little Rich Kids

**Author:** Omnicat

**Spoilers & Desirable Foreknowledge:** Nothing in particular, everyithing in general.

**Warnings:** Drabble #1 has blood.

**Characters & Pairings:** Relena, Quatre. Drabble #3 has hints of 1xR and 3x4 (if you squint/read the caption), the others can be interpreted as 4xR if your goggles slant that way.

**Summary:** Five drabbles, 4x100 and 1x150 words. Relena, Quatre, and the lives they lead.

**Author's Note:** Gift fic for a Ivy-chan.

**II-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-I-oOo-I-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-II**

**She Always Was Awkward About This Self-Preservation Thing**

The flesh between Relena's thumb and index finger is a bloody mess. She knows how to handle a gun, but it's not like she's used to actually doing it.

"I never knew you could do that," Quatre says as he takes care of the wound.

"You weren't taught self-defence? On Earth, kids like us are considered vulnerabilities, easy targets."

Quatre's mouth forms an 'o'. "I thought I was the only one. I never understood until... I mean, since my father was..."

"Another thing we have in common, then."

She hisses and flinches.

The only bandage available is his silk tie.

**I-oOo-I**

**Modern Warfare**

The room smells, more than anything else, of snuffed candles.

The dishes have left with the butler, the dignitaries with chauffeurs, one Earthling per limousine while the colonists taxied together. There are three blood-red stains in the tablecloth, two old friends in battered armour - his tie loosened, the elegant twist in her hair sagging - and one bottle of wine left. Tiny coils of smoke frame their tired triumph at a long awaited, hard-won battle.

"Boring, isn't it?" Relena grins. "Saving the world these days."

Quatre grins back. "I think we deserve a pat on the back."

They clink sparkling glasses.

**I-oOo-I**

**Severely Classy Porn Implied**

The argument about The Suit is rapidly approaching (idiocy) sensitivities Relena knows Quatre has but Trowa, bless his heart, just wouldn't be able to understand.

"Trowa, he would be able to buy you a new tux every day for the rest of your life without making a dent in his inheritance. It's a mere formality. What he's really offering is sharing the evening and a guaranteed to be unique experience."

Her brusqueness stuns them both. Trowa finally stops frowning.

"Sounds like you've argued this before."

She and Heero exchange looks. "No," they chorus, and leave it at that.

For decency's sake.

**I-oOo-I**

**For Every Atlas, A Sentinel**

"I'll build a new world."

Her eyes are bright and hard, that mixture of untempered dreams and brutal, desolate history that he can't imagine coexisting in any other person.

"The Mars Terraforming Project needed sponsors. I'll find out if times have truly changed enough for a world of peace, starting from nothing."

_Only a Peacecraft,_ he thinks involuntarily, _testing her vision, her self, on a scale of global extinction and interplanetary war._

But that's not entirely fair, is it?

It hypnotizes him still.

Then she turns to him, former gundam pilot and half Heero, and he knows what she'll ask.

**I-oOo-I**

**The More Things Change**

Quatre speaks of friends often, lives them easily. Relena, once, said, "I'm not sure I've ever been one."

She never says it again, waves the words away whenever he hints at them. Quatre doesn't know what to think and thus worries all the more. It's over three years later that he finally gets around to asking her if she remembers.

The colonies, being closed micro-environments, celebrate New Year's Eve differently than the Earth; Relena holds his hand tight against whistles and bangs and the smell of gunpowder, points out the people ten stories below, mingling radiantly in the flicker-lit streets, then the endless horizons to which the lights and its people reach.

"Yes," she answers, the look on her face exactly as he remembers it before a new arrow bursts. "But it doesn't matter. This is my kingdom."

His first Earthly turn-of-the-year on Earth is deeply, irrevocably moving. He understands.


End file.
